College Students Charged With Hate Crimes Against Black Roommate

Four San Jose State University students have been charged with misdemeanor hate-crime and battery for committing hate crimes against their 17 year-old black roommate.

via YouTube

The harassment and crimes started when the victim’s three roommates and an unnamed student started calling the victim “three fifths,” referring to a time when slaves were considered three fifths of a person during census counts. From there the harassment increased. The roommates wrote racial epithets on a dry erase board in their shared living space, displayed pictures of Hitler and other Nazi related images, and put up a confederate flag. They physically harassed him by barricading him in his room and piling furniture against his door, as well as physically restraining him and locking a U-shaped bike lock around his neck. The roommates also tried to get him to enter a closet, knowing that he was claustrophobic, where they had removed the inside doorknob.

“He told university police he always locked his door at night because he was scared of most of the other students living in the four-bedroom suite,” the San Jose Mercury News reports about the victim. “He also didn’t feel safe studying in his own room and believes his grades weren’t as good as they could be as a result.”

In October, the parents of the hazed roommate reported the harassment to campus police, who then reported it to the District Attorney’s Office. The accused roommates claim that the hazing was all in jest and was not racist. If convicted of the misdemeanor hate-crime and battery charges, the students could face up to a year in prison.

Fellow students have held rallies on campus in support of the victim, and the NAACP has called for felony hate-crime charges against the students in question.

1 comment

I think the 4 young boys should be charged with felony hate crime. That charge will set a precedent for any other groups and or individuals who think about doing something similar or once to someone because of race, religion, sexual orientation or gender. It saddens me that this racially motivating bullying continued for weeks with no one reporting it or acknowledging it. His RA’s told the boys to take the confederate flag down but her being the Resident Assistant didn’t think she should speak with someone of higher authority , seeing that a young African American male had to live with this young men who obviously felt a distaste toward African Americans as a whole. It’s mind blowing!